5th Year Adventures, Short Story 11, Harry Potter and the Moonless Bat
by PTMaskell
Summary: Harry Potter and the Moonless Battle. In an effort to locate the long-missing Filius Flitwick, Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts late one night only to be met with betrayal at the hands of an old friend.


Silently the injured Auror made his way through the secret passages of Hogwarts castle. The third year of his schooling there, he had been gifted the map he clutched with his good hand, watching helplessly as someone whom he had once counted among his most trusted allies in the world hunted him. It had been more out of whimsy and nostalgia that he had bothered to bring the Marauders Map in the first place, Harry hadn't actually expected to use it again.

Watching for his pursuers name to pass through the hall he needed to cross, he held is breath until her name vanished around the corner before pulling aside the red curtain and limping across to the adjacent one and ducking behind it, continuing to keep as much distance between himself and the Headmistress as he could until he could make his way to the Potions classroom in the Dungeon where, if he was lucky, he might just find enough ingredients to brew a Mandrake's Restorative Draught, and undo the disfiguring Transfiguration done to his left arm.

Feeling the writhing tentacles within his robes, where an arm should be, Harry Potter couldn't help but wonder as he tracked Minerva's name across the map just what had possessed her to attack him? If Professor Flitwick was here, as the Department of Mysteries said he for sure was, behind enchantments attempting to hide him, enchantments that had been in place for likely five years since his disappearance, she should be the first to try and help him look.

Instead she had attacked him.

Glancing around a corner, Harry found the stairway leading to the dungeons clear just as the map had indicated. Remembering the exact route to Severus Snape's former Potions classroom was easy. He'd traveled the way there hundreds of times over the years, from several different directions.

He just hoped the former Transfiguration Professor wouldn't think to look for him there.

Ducking inside the classroom, he found the desks, cupboards, and cauldrons exactly as they had been 25 years earlier. He just hoped-"Brilliant," he whispered, as he opened the ingredients cupboard finding fresh Mandrake root amongst the ready herbs and potion-making supplies.

Readying a cauldron, flame and ingredients, Harry set forth preparing a Mandrake Restorative Draught. Opening up the map, he laid it out to show the whole school, once more locating Headmistress McGonagall. She was edging along the courtyard, keeping to the shadows. He'd already seen her pause in the dungeons, near a single student out past lights out. His name had vanished moments after hers had, but Harry didn't actually remember seeing the other name returning to a dormitory. Not something he had time to worry about.

As he squeezed the juice from the Mandrake root into the potion, he ran the events that had led him there through his mind once more, trying to make sense of them.

Harry had arrived that evening just before lights out, that moonless night. He met Headmistress McGonagall in her office after traveling from the bridge into the school. A dirty look from Argus Filch was the only greeting he'd received.

He had come prepared: wand polished, hair cut (though it had already become unkempt, long, and scraggly as it so often did), and trusted invisibility cloak stowed away inside his robe pocket.

The Headmistress had been oddly distant, and cold to him when he'd knocked on her door. Even her formalities seemed distant to him. Minerva McGonagall had served as his Head of House for Gryffindor the entire time he'd gone to school at Hogwarts. He was convinced it was her who bought him his first broom, a Nimbus Two Thousand after convincing the Quidditch Referee, and Flying Instructor Madame Hooch to allow him, a first year to participate in the school sport despite the rules not allowing it. She had stuck her neck out in Harry's defense time and time again, following the letter of the rules, but never once failing to show compassion, dignity, and respect to those who deserved it.

But tonight, she was a completely different person.

It had taken nearly a full two hours to convince her to allow him to perform even the most rudimentary of searches for the missing Charms Professor, Filius Flitwick. And that was only after showing her evidence from the Department of Mysteries, the orders from the Ministry of Magic, and pulling rank as an Auror.

Removing the stewed mandrake roots from a boiling cauldron, and placing them into the Restorative Potion in the second cauldron he stirred it three times clockwise, then once counterclockwise to begin thickening it. The draught would still need some time. It was blue now. Not long until it would become a vibrant green, and be ready to be bottled.

'If that spell had been just a little more accurate,' Harry thought, 'I'd have been turned into an octopus.'

His Tranfiguration teacher was slipping it would seem.

Harry hadn't made it out of the office when the first spell crashed into his back, causing him to flip over when the unspoken Flipendo had landed true.

Stunned, Harry shed his tangled robes as he tried to stand up. A second spell shot past his face, drawing blood, and sending him tumbling down the stairs. The eagle-staircases wings made the fall especially harsh as he banged against the metallic edges.

The brief battle had taken them quickly out to the courtyard. Harry was running, and defending himself. If he could have made it to the bridge, he could apparate out of the school and back to the Ministry.

But for an 84 year old witch, she had the battle acumen of a fighter at least 20 years younger.

She caught his blindside, and he felt his left arm turn to tentacles. So Harry did what he always did.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried out, he heard McGonnagal screech as her wand flew from her hand. But it went insanely wild. Harry was frazzled from the unwarranted and unexpected battle. Both wands flew high into the sky in opposite directions, and out of sight.

And the part that made Harry shiver with terror, was what happened next.

Black clouds enveloped her body, and she took off into the night without broom or spell. Harry had only seen one other group of people fly like that: Death Eaters.

Lowered the heat to the cauldron. A hue of green was working its way into the mixture, even in the low light of the flame, he could see it starting to glow slightly. Next time, to save time, he would begin stewing the mandrake roots immediately, instead of foolishly getting caught up in his thoughts, and only starting he process once the potion called for them. He'd wasted valuable time.

The last time the Draught had been used in this school, a bunch of his friends had been turned completely to stone, including Hermione. The draught was used to change them back into human. Even a fraction of that would do to undo the mangled tentacle mess his left arm was currently in.

Harry had been so engrossed, he hadn't been watching the map. Bottling the draught after it started glowing a bright green, Harry had just swallowed the brew and felt his arm returning to normal when he felt a wand touch the back of his head.

"Imperius."


End file.
